{"id":19305,"date":"2020-07-20T02:04:11","date_gmt":"2020-07-19T23:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/?p=19305"},"modified":"2020-07-20T02:04:11","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T23:04:11","slug":"eu-leaders-deadlocked-over-recovery-fund-as-talks-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/archives\/19305","title":{"rendered":"EU Leaders Deadlocked Over Recovery Fund as Talks Continue"},"content":{"rendered":"
(Bloomberg) —<\/span><\/section>\n
European Union efforts to agree on a 750 billion-euro ($856 billion) stimulus package ran into trouble late Sunday as leaders were unable to reconcile differences over how much of the recovery fund should be distributed through grants versus low-interest loans.<\/p>\n

European Council President Charles Michel<\/a> floated a new proposal that would reduce the size of handouts to 400 billion euros, down from an original 500 billion euros, according to officials familiar with the discussions. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte<\/a> and his Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz<\/a> rejected the new offer, and stood by a pledge to limit grants to 350 billion euros.<\/p>\n

Denmark, Sweden and Finland, which initially had been aligned with the Dutch and Austrians, weren\u2019t as opposed to the amount of grants in Michel\u2019s latest proposal, said the officials, who asked not to be identified because the talks are ongoing.<\/p>\n

Germany and France, with the backing of most of the bloc, are insistent that at least 400 billion euros of the package must be handouts in order to shield the fragile economies of southern Europe from the worst effects of the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cEurope is being blackmailed,\u201d Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte<\/a> said Sunday as frustration with the Dutch-led group began to mount.<\/p>\n

Despite the inability to find a consensus over the size of the stimulus package, talks continued into the evening.<\/p>\n

With investors already pricing in a deal after a series of bold announcements in recent weeks, leaders are under intense pressure to bridge their differences before financial markets open on Monday. Yet they\u2019ve largely been going around in circles since talks began on Friday morning as they struggle to bridge the familiar fault lines between the richer North and the southern countries worst affected by the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally the agreement should be ambitious in terms of size and composition of the package, broadly along the lines of what has been proposed by the commission,\u201d European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde<\/a> said in response to a question from Reuters. \u201cIt is better to agree on an ambitious facility even if it takes a bit more time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
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Mark Rutte, Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen and Emmanuel Macron during the summit in Brussels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Rutte and his allies are trying to water down the handouts that the highly indebted South sees as critical for shoring up its finances. While Saturday proved less bad-tempered and more constructive than Friday\u2019s gathering, it was still difficult to discern much progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil now what we have seen is the commission, the president of the council and the majority of member states making an effort to come closer to four countries,\u201d Portugal\u2019s Antonio Costa<\/a> said. \u201cThey also have to make some effort.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n
Read more…<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Euphoric European Markets Look to Leaders to Strike a Deal <\/a><\/p>\n

Dutch Embrace the Bad-Guy Role the Brits Left Vacant in Europe<\/a><\/p>\n

The 700 Billion-Euro Man Counting Each Cent to Keep Italy Afloat<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The 27 leaders are meeting in person for the first time since February, when initial talks over the EU\u2019s seven-year, 1 trillion-euro budget also ran into the buffers. Now, with more than 100,000 Europeans dead from the virus and an economy to rebuild, investors are looking to the group to muster a display of unity to maintain the rally in stocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe will to find a compromise should not make us renounce the legitimate ambitions which we must have,\u201d Macron said Sunday. \u201cIn the coming hours we will see if the two are compatible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are moving in a fairer direction,\u201d Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz<\/a> said. \u201cI personally would find it a real shame if it was abandoned.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deliberations are proving to be a baptism of fire for Michel, a former Belgian Prime Minister, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen<\/a>, who drew up the original plan. They only took up their jobs in December and have faced criticism from governments over their handling of the pandemic response.<\/p>\n

Merkel and Macron have been pressing for an agreement before the summer but haven\u2019t yet been able to bring their weight to bear to force a result. The bloc\u2019s two largest economies are seen as crucial power brokers and they were photographed sitting on a sunny terrace as they searched for a breakthrough.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re entering the third day of talks and it certainly is the decisive one,\u201d Merkel said on Sunday morning. \u201cIt\u2019s possible there will be no agreement today.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/section>\n

(Updates with details on negotiations in the second, third paragraphs)<\/section>\n
\n

–With assistance from Richard Bravo<\/a>, Viktoria Dendrinou<\/a>, Katharina Rosskopf<\/a>, John Follain<\/a>, Maria Tadeo<\/a>, Diederik Baazil<\/a>, Arne Delfs<\/a>, Jan Bratanic<\/a>, Jonathan Stearns<\/a>, Morten Buttler<\/a>, Boris Groendahl<\/a> and Ania Nussbaum<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Bloomberg) — European Union efforts to agree on a 750 billion-euro ($856 billion) stimulus package ran into trouble late Sunday as leaders were unable to reconcile differences over how much of the recovery fund should be distributed through grants versus low-interest loans. European Council President Charles Michel floated a new proposal that would reduce the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19306,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19305\/revisions\/19306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}